Welcome to GHIC

Hughes (Antiphospholipid) Syndrome, also known as "sticky blood", can have profound implications for patients causing miscarriages, strokes and heart attacks.

GHIC has two aims:

To educate and empower patients by raising awareness globally about Hughes Syndrome

To promote better understanding and management of the condition by medical professionals, thereby improving patient care.

Many patients tell stories of slow diagnosis or a tortuous route to the correct treatment. And yet, it is easily diagnosed and potentially very treatable.

Prof Graham Hughes, famous for his pioneering work in Lupus, first reported on a new syndrome in 1983 when he described the clinical manifestations of the condition, including the tendency to thrombosis and recurring pregnancy loss. His descriptions also included many of the other manifestations of the disease. Prof Hughes and his colleagues also set up the first assays for anticardiolipin antibodies and heralded the first international conference, which is a regular fixture in the medical calendar to this day.

As one in five Lupus patients also have Hughes Syndrome, and the two diseases share many manifestations, GHIC has also included Lupus information on this website.

These diseases have no boundaries, affecting patients throughout the world. For this reason our charity sought the help of an international team of expert doctors, world-renowned leaders in our field, to join us globally, to improve and share knowledge and treatment both with their own patients as well as with their own links with local patient and national patient groups and societies. We are very pleased to have over 78 experts from 36 countries in the GHIC team, and we aim to add to that number in the future.

So, if you or a friend or relative is far away from you, we hope that we can shorten the distance. We hope our charity brings together patients and doctors, relatives and friends to highlight what we know of these conditions to help improve the lives of all of those affected by them.

Latest

Lifetime achievement for Medical Research Excellence

Professor Graham Hughes, Head of the London Lupus Centre at London Bridge Hospital, has been selected to receive the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence in the field of Rheumatology.